Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Everything gets more expensive, Children and Pets

Two items from the Wall St Journal today. 
1. They figure it costs $230,000 to raise a child today.  That's without allowing for college tuition.  Wow!  I raised three children, all the way to adulthood.  I didn't keep records so I don't know just what I spent, but somehow I don't think it was as bad $230K per child.  Hell, I had to pay $160K per child for college educations.  We didn't scrimp, we sent two of them to Westtown School, and one to Buckingham Brown and Nicholls, we took 'em skiing, sent 'em to summer camp.  Worth every penny,  they all turned out fine, and are a great comfort in my old age.
 
2.  A graph showing US spending on pets, going from just under $30 billion back in 2001 to just over $60 billion today.  Again  Wow!  A second graph broke down 2016 pet spending as $16 billion on vet bills, $24 billion on pet food, and $16 billion on pet medicines and stuff.  I have a cat, very nice beast, and I feed it the $3.50 a bag cheapo dry cat food rather than the $12 a bag fancy dry cat food.  Cat doesn't seem to care.

I have to wonder if either of those numbers is real. 

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